How to boost your body confidence

Posted on March 26, 2020 by Cliona Byrne, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

Put simply, body confidence is all about accepting your body and living your life with confidence. This means being comfortable with what you see in the mirror and maybe even… dare I say it… loving your reflection! Being body confident allows you to wear what you want, do what you want, and feel great while doing it. Say goodbye to constantly feeling like you need to change yourself and say hello to empowered freedom. Here are my eight tips on how to boost your own body confidence.

1. Tell your inner critic to shut up

Sometimes we can be our own biggest critic, and let me tell you something, that critic needs to shut up! You know that you’ve an inner body critic if you find yourself thinking negative thoughts when you look in the mirror. Maybe your critic points out blemishes, searches for imperfections, or tells you to lose weight.

So, what do you need to do? You need to shush that little bitch and take away the micro-phone!

How do you do it? Well, first things first, you need to start being aware of your critic. The monologue of our inner critic can become a habit and part of our daily lives. Just because your critic has set up camp in your mind, doesn’t mean that you need to allow them to stick around.

Start paying attention to when you criticise yourself and shut it down. Which leads us on to the next point…

2. Tell yourself kind words

It’s so important to say kind words to yourself. Most of the time we wait to be validated by other people. We wait for our bosses to say that we are doing a good job, we wait to be told we are beautiful, and we wait… and wait… and wait. But the truth is that we need to validate ourselves and the good news is that we don’t have to wait for that validation. You can do it right now.

Start complimenting yourself in order to boost your body confidence. Tell yourself that you are beautiful, smart, and worthy. Talk to yourself like your own best friend. Be your own cheerleader.

3. Make friends with the mirror

To boost your body confidence, you need to become familiar with yourself. This means spending some time really looking in the mirror. I encourage my clients to look in the mirror and note what they like about themselves. Maybe you love your eyes, elbows, and feet. It doesn’t really matter what it is, you just need to find at least one thing that we like about yourself.

If you really aren’t comfortable with your reflection then you may avoid it, especially when you are in the nip. But the truth is that the more you see yourself nude, the faster you can begin to accept your body and love it.

If you are uncomfortable seeing yourself nude, then take your focus away from your body and place it elsewhere. Maybe try drying your hair or brushing your teeth in the nude. The more often you see yourself the sooner you can begin to accept yourself.

4. Smile at your beautiful self

The number one thing I ask all my clients to do is to start smiling at their reflections. I ask them to do it whenever they see themselves throughout the day. You see, when you smile your brain releases serotonin which makes you feel good. Your brain does this even if you are just doing a fake smile. I know, cool right? I bet you are smiling right now, aren’t you? Anyway, if you start smiling when you see your reflection you will start to feel good every time you see yourself. After some time, you will start to associate seeing yourself with feeling good. So, even if you forget to smile sometimes, you will still feel good just from association.

5. Show yourself some gratitude

Body confidence isn’t just about liking the way you look but about being truly grateful for your body. Sometimes we can spend so much time nit-picking and disliking our bodies that we forget that it’s the thing that is keeping us alive. Take some time to think about all the wonderful things that your body does for you. That includes breathing, your senses, movement, feelings, laughter… and IT IS KEEPING YOU ALIVE.

6. Clean up your feed

I’m not going to tell you to quit all social media and go live off the grid. But what I will tell you is to clean up your feed. Please, for our own good, BE BRUTAL. Unfollow anything that makes you feel bad about yourself, makes you compare your body, or that triggers you into negative behaviour. Just unfollow it, even if it is a friend’s content (Sorry Katelyn but I don’t want to buy your diet pills. Please throw that crap in the bin).

Once you have cleaned your feed you are going to fill it up again. BUT, this time I want you to be more selective and start to follow body confidence and body positivity accounts. From now on you should try to only follow things that make you feel good.

7. Start praising, stop picking

Do you have a habit of noticing and pointing out other people’s flaws? Be honest with yourself here. When you are with friends do you talk about celebs or people you know? Here is the harsh truth, talking about other people’s bodies and style choices is not going to help you with your own body confidence. It damages your opinion of yourself. So, just like your inner critic, your outer critic needs to be shushed too. Replace criticism with praise. Start looking for things to praise people about instead of looking for things to fault them on.

Love comes from love, not from hate.

8. Body Confidence Coaching

Body confidence coaching is the fast track to accepting and loving your body. If you want to do all the above and more then give body confidence coaching a go. Confidence about your body image doesn’t just impact your relationship with yourself but every single aspect of your life. That includes your career, relationships, friendships, and family life.